Environmental Injustice in the Urban Southwest: A Case Study of Phoenix, Arizona - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 307

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Environmental Injustice in the Urban Southwest:
A Case St udy of Phoenix, Arizona
Bob Bolin, Sara Grineski, and Edward J. Hackett
CONTENTS
17.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 309
17.2 Phoenix, Arizona ............................................................................................................... 310
17.3 Environmental Inequalities in the Western Sunbelt .................................................... 310
17.4 Phoenix's Riskscape ........................................................................................................... 311
17.5 Toxic Tracts: Production of Environmental Inequality ................................................ 314
17.6 Urban Development, Planning, and Environmental Justice ....................................... 317
Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................................... 318
References ..................................................................................................................................... 318
17.1 Introduction
This chapter examines the distribution of technological hazards in the Phoenix
metropolitan area, focusing on race and class inequalities in facility locations and the issue
of environmental justice. Our focus is on identifying a zone-pronounced environmental
inequality in Phoenix and examining the historical roots of those inequities. In this study,
we consider the development and persistence of environmental inequities in Phoenix,
Arizona, a city emblematic of the rapidly urbanizing Southwest. Chronic conditions of
poverty, underdevelopment, and environmental degradation in South Phoenix are seen as
a consequence of land use, investment, and zoning decisions that extend historically to the
early twentieth century. We consider the ways that rapid urban growth and industrialization
in the twentieth century has produced and expanded a zone of environmental injustices
in the city.
To examine potential environmental justice concerns, we address two questions in what
follows. First, what are the current sociospatial patterns of environmental inequities in the
Phoenix metropolitan area? Second, what factors in urban development have contributed
to these patterns of environmental injustices in the city? Finally, we examine convergences
with patterns of environmental inequities in other western Sunbelt cities and discuss
strategies for reducing environmental injustices.
As developed in the environmental justice literature, environmental inequities refer
to the disproportionate burdening of low-income and people of color communities with
industrial hazards, toxic waste sites, and other locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) such as
freeways, sports stadia, and airports. To address our primary questions, we first highlight
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